Veolia to revive Closed Loop bottle recycling plant

The move has been welcomed by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who said that the deal is ‘good news for London and good news for the environment’.

Veolia retained an interest in the business, which closed its doors in late summer 2015, having told letsrecycle.com around 12 months ago that it was ‘committed’ to ensuring the future of the plant as a key supplier to the facility (see letsrecycle.com story).

The acquisition strengthens Veolia’s plastics recycling business – with material likely to be supplied directly from the company’s nearby Rainham PRF, which sorts mixed plastics from household collections. The company anticipates that the move will create a total of 30 jobs.

Capacity

Veolia will produce around 10,000 tonnes of rHDPE from the site, once it is running.

Commenting on the acquisition, Estelle Brachlianoff, senior executive vice president Veolia UK and Ireland said, “We are very interested to collaborate in this space since co-operation with the manufacturing sector, the people actually making things from recovered materials, is essential in order to be successful for the long term.

“This is a great opportunity to work in tandem with our Rainham plastic recycling facility to turn the high density polyethylene (HDPE) milk bottles back into bottles and we are excited at mastering  the full supply chain by moving into this type of manufacturing.  This shows once again Veolia’s commitment to investment in the UK.”

London

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “I am determined to redouble efforts to increase the amount London recycles so I am delighted that Veolia has purchased this important facility. This plant will be able to recycle all of the capital’s empty milk bottles – a mountain of waste that would otherwise have been sent to landfill. This is good news for London and good news for the environment.”

News of the deal comes after Euro Closed Loop Recycling, the Dubai-backed company which was formed following the takeover of the Dagenham plant from the predecessor Closed Loop, was placed into administration in May (see letsrecycle.com story).

“This plant will be able to recycle all of the capital’s empty milk bottles – a mountain of waste that would otherwise have been sent to landfill. This is good news for London and good news for the environment.”

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Sadiq Khan
Mayor of London

Closed Loop Recycling opened its 35,000 tonnes per year capacity milk bottle recycling plant in 2008, which was seen as one of the flagship recycling facilities for the plastics sector since its opening.

Works to expand the capacity of the plant to handle 55,000 tonnes of plastic bottles were undertaken in 2013.

Takeover

The company was then bought after having posted losses due to challenging trading conditions in early 2015. The takeover saw the company’s founder, Chris Dow, leave the business.

Shortly after having bought the company, which then began trading under the name Euro Closed Loop Recycling, the new owners scaled back operations at the Dagenham bottle recycling facility claiming that the plant was losing around £300,000 per month.

The owners had claimed that they had been unable to find a price for the rHDPE product at a level that it can compete with virgin plastics, which it is claimed has become significantly cheaper to produce.